Twenty Years Ago This Week: An unregistered activist group calling themselves ‘The Colorado Republican Caucus’ mailed letters to at least 160 Republicans in Mesa County calling various Grand Junction Republicans “turncoats” and “traitors.”

“The danger was that the letters were mailed by a group, with an official-sounding name, and many people thought it was from the party,” said Mesa County GOP chair Lois Dunn.

The letters arrived days before the precinct caucuses and named members of several precinct caucuses whose names had appeared in an earlier “Republicans for Buescher” ad in 2004. 

The mailing called upon Republicans to stand against Buescher’s supporters. Those Republicans included Peggy Foster, mother of Mesa State College President Tim Foster, and activists Sandy Lipson, Steve Laiche and Martha Romer.

The letter referenced the 2004 race in which Bernie Buescher defeated Republican Shari Bjorkland for House District 55, drawing deep-pocketed Republican support. Those Republicans saw Bjorkland as an extremist and her campaign as dirty.

“There was a lot of discussion of the letter, and in general, everyone was in support of the people who were named,” said Dunn. “Party members came forth and voiced their concerns, and there was so much support, in fact, that anyone who had been named in the letter was automatically made a delegate.”

As Dunn was unsure whether the letter was illegal, she handed it over to District Attorney Pete Hautzinger.

“A new criminal statute, passed in 2005, makes it a misdemeanor to make and publish false statements intended to affect an election, so, if demonstrably and provably false statements were made, we might possibly have a case,” Hautzinger said.

DA investigator Gil Stone was tasked with looking into the matter, and, based on those findings, Hautzinger said he would consider taking the issue before the Colorado District Attorney’s Council, which determined the parameters of the new law.

The letter listed a post office box in Denver and, after soliciting donations, was signed by one Dan Green. Hautzinger had not been successful in finding the ‘Dan Green,’ nor were messages left at the supplied telephone number returned for comment.

Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, said that when he tried to find out who owned the Colorado Republican Caucus website, it turned out to be “registered through a Chesterbrook, PA subsidiary of a company in Karlsruhe, Germany.”

Dana Williams, spokesperson for the Colorado Secretary of State, told The Colorado Statesman that such a group attempted to register on March 15, but was rejected because it failed to list its specific purpose.

The Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction’s newspaper, had received a faxed letter from Green in which he claimed sole authorship of the letter.

“Such attempts at disguise could be used in court to argue that the author of the letter knew he was on shaky legal ground when he mailed it,” Hautzinger said.

Larry Jones, a longtime Republican who was singled out in the letter, said the letters had “made me very angry and even more committed to support those with good, moderate Republican values.”

Buescher said he felt it was awfully early to start negatively campaigning.

“I feel badly for my friends who are being attacked,” Buescher said. “It’s very sad when people are attacked for their choices.”

Former Rep. Gayle Berry, R-Grand Junction, who defeated Bjorkland in the 2002 primary for HD 55, said that “it was a rogue group of wackos behind the caucus letter, not Democrats but Republicans determined to purify the party.”

Rachael Wright is the author of several novels, including The Twins of Strathnaver, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing columnist to Colorado Politics, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and the Denver Gazette.